Virgin and CKUT switch spots this year, as do the Ceeb and CISM. CHOM holds steady, but what’s this? Why, CJLO, Concordia’s long-delayed AM station, climbs out of the Honourable mention cellar and sits at #6. Kahnawake, the Team and the Q all make gains.

The top five remain constant in both winners and positions, but Télé-Québec jumps five spots following an off-year showing at #10 and Musique Plus makes a modest, one-spot gain. The haters— those who answered along the lines of “None/Never watch/TV sucks,” who ranked #8 last year—disappear.

BEST LOCAL TV PERSONALITY #6:
Donna Mei-Ling Park

Virgin’s Breakfast Show zaps to the top, and coming second is CKUT’s Audio Smut—a feminist, “Sex Positive Podcast for Perverts”— that gets the airwaves all hot ’n’ bothered the first Wednesday of every month from 6–7 p.m. Bilal Butt makes the most of his 4–8 p.m. slot and drags the venerated “Spirit of Rock” into somewhere approximating the 21st century. And the Team’s weekend morning show, The Franchise, hosted by the proudly rotund duo Gary Whittaker and Nick Murdocco, huffs, puffs and rolls its way onto the list.

BEST LOCAL RADIO HOST #1: Bilal Butt

Best Local Radio Host

1. Bilal Butt (CHOM 97.7 FM)
2. Cat Spencer (Virgin 96 FM)
3. Ted Bird (CHOM 97.7 FM/K103.7 FM)
4. Mitch Melnick (The Team 990 AM)
5. Dan Behrman (Espace musique, 100.7 FM)

6. Don Smooth (K103.7 FM)
7. Chantal Desjardins (CHOM 97.7 FM)
8. Nat Lauzon (Virgin 96 FM)
9. René Homier-Roy (Radio-Canada 95.1 FM)
10. Jimmy Spencer (CHOM 97.7 FM)
Honourable mentions: Aaron Rand (Q92.5 FM) • Rob Kemp (CHOM 97.7 FM) • Nancy Wood (CBC 88.5 FM)

Bilal Butt, “the musicologist with the fresh new outlook,” as CHOM’s website describes him, takes the town by storm, mixing CHOM’s trademark classic rock with a dose of newer stuff and some snarky humour for drive time. Ted Bird, last year’s champ, drops to #3, perhaps suffering further ignominy following his strange departure from CHOM earlier this year over “creative and philosophical differences.” Melnick is up from last year’s #7 in both this category and Best Radio Show, and Nancy Wood, frogmarched off CBC’s morning show, pops up in Honourable mention.

Best Local Newscaster

1. Mutsumi Takahashi (CFCF)
2. Todd van der Heyden (CFCF)
3. Céline Galipeau (Radio-Canada)
4. Paul Karwatsky (CFCF)
5. Tarah Schwartz (CFCF)
6. Debra Arbec (CFCF)
7. Jamie Orchard (Global)
8. Bernard Derome (Radio-Canada)
9. Pierre Bruneau (TVA)
10. Randy Tieman (CFCF)
Honourable mentions: Andrew Chang (CBC) • Frank
Cavallaro (CBC) • Pascale Nadeau (Radio-Canada)

And the CFCF mafia continues its uninterrupted reign of terror over all and sundry.

No big changes here, other than the introduction of Donna Mei-Ling Park, east coast correspondent for the video-game-focused show Electric Playgroundand ARTV’s Catherine Pogonat. Welcome to the big time, ladies!

Best Magazine/Zine

1. Nightlife
2. Panoram Italia
3. Urbania
4. Lickety Split
5. Vice
6. Maisonneuve
7. Snap!
8. Dress to Kill
9. LouLou
10. Fugues
Honourable mentions: • Châtelaine• Summum • DGOD ( Degeneration Overdrive)

Nightlife stays on top this year, but Panoram Italia, a community magazine, charges up from #10 to #2. Fashion mag Dress to Kill makes its debut, as does local punk rawk quarterly DGOD, while blinkand- it’s-gone-again Naked Eye pulls another disappearing act. Of course, the Mirror got the most votes, but as we say every year, we’re a newspaper, not a magazine!

Best Newspaper

1. Mirror
2. The Gazette
3. La Presse
4. Le Devoir
5. Voir
6. Journal de Montréal
7. Metro
8. Hour
9. Senior Times
10. The Link
Honourable mentions: 24 Heures • The
Concordian • McGill Daily

We love you too.

Best Local Blog

1. Midnight Poutine (midnightpoutine.ca)
2. Fagstein (blog.fagstein.com)
3. Indecent Xposure (indecentxposure.net)
4. Spacing Montreal (spacingmontreal.ca)
5. 25stanley (25stanley.com)
6. Said the Gramophone
(saidthegramophone.com)
7. BitchinLifestyle (bitchinlifestyle.tv)
8. Montreal City Weblog
(w5.montreal.com/mtlweblog)
9. Fashionista514 (fashionista514.com)
10. Habsinside/out (habsinsideout.com)
Honourable mentions: • Coolopolis (coolopolis. blogspot.com) • Montreal State of Mind (montrealstateofmind.
com) • Lady Jane’s Treasure Trove
(ladyjanestreasuretrove.blogspot.com)

Midnight Poutine and local news/media industry/ transit geek Fagstein stay on top this year, while theme-party/music blog Indecent Xposure blasts out of nowhere to #3. It’s not the only new one here this year: debuting are Habs-obsessed 25stanley, fashionable Fashionista 514, news-ish Coolopolis and second- hand kitsch-crazy Lady Jane.